Royal Navy ship seizes narcotics worth £8.5m

Kimberley Barber

HEROIN worth £8.5m has been seized from a fishing boat by a Royal Navy warship.

Nearly 130lbs of the drug was seized in the northern Arabian Sea by sailors and Royal Marines from HMS Somerset.

HMS Somerset’s crew found the dhow - a type of vessel common to the Middle East and Indian Ocean - during an operation for the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) counter-terrorism Combined Task Force (CTF) 150.

The crew worked 23 hours to find the contraband’s hiding place, stashed under a false deck.

Commander Mike Smith, the Plymouth-based Type 23 frigate’s commanding officer, said: ‘Full-hearted commitment to the task, courage and teamwork were central to halting this shipment of illegal narcotics. I am incredibly proud of what my team have achieved.’